Page 47 of When We Were Younger

"Really? You're not thinking about moving back here, are you?" Jay asks. I shake my head.

"Fuck no. God, absolutely not." I feel Stephen stiffen beside me, but in a split second, he's back to dragging his fingertips back up and down my arm. I almost feel bad for spitting out my gut reaction like that, but staying here or moving back was absolutely never in the cards for me. This is all going to warrant a bigger conversation, but for now, I lean into his touch, telepathically letting him know that he is not the reason I don't want to be here. Not anymore.

"Does this mean what I think it means?" Kira says, hopping up to her knees and poking me repeatedly in the chest.

"Maybe," I say slyly, sipping my wine.

"Anyone wanna share with the class? What do you think it means, Keeks?" Stephen asks, with a forced sounding laugh.

"I think it means Dottie girl is finally pulling her head out of her ass and joining The Pussy Posse up in San Francisco!" she squeals as she launches herself into my lap.

"What the fuck is a pussy posse?" I hear Stephen mutter as wine splashes over the rim of my glass while Kira straddles me and bounces.

"Relax, Keeks. It's just a thought. An interesting thought, but a thought."

"Please please please move up to SF. All those bitch ass friends of yours in LA are so lame. The cool people all moved away. The only ones left are the washed-up models who are bound to write salacious tell-all books about you one day," she says, nuzzling into my neck.

"Hey," I say, swatting her butt. "I'm one of those washed-up models, missy."

"You're not a washed-up model! You’re a hot, rich, influencer-slash-model-slash-DJ and an aspiring event planner! You've got G's wedding that you’re working on and hello?? The Streamline holiday that you planned for Adler?"

She's got a point there. I have been enjoying my newfound projects, and even though I didn't get to attend the Streamline holiday party, Georgie and Rach FaceTimed me from the event and it turned out even more beautiful than I had imagined. The Winter Wonderland theme popped on screen. The jazz band I hired sounded amazing with a perfect 'nostalgic Christmas' vibe, exactly what I had been going for. I had real trees brought in and adorned with lights, ice sculptures galore–the classy kind, no swans here–and about a million and half candles mixing with twinkling lights to create the perfect ambience.

It's amazing what a person can accomplish with a billionaire's budget.

"Well, whatever you choose to do, it sounds like you're right on the brink of a bright new chapter. We're proud of you, Dottie girl. Now, these two old hags need to get to bed. Kira, set the alarm when you go to bed, will you honey?"

With that, Jay and Keith head upstairs.

"I think I'm gonna head up, too. You two are staying here tonight, right?" Keeks asks, and Stephen nods.

"That'd be great. I don't want to drive when I've been drinking, even if it wasn't much."

"We could call an Uber," I say. I don't know have much time left here in town, and I'm not ready to ask what comes next so in the meantime, I'd like to continue to make the most of our nights as possible. Something I don't think we can do properly on McKenna Mountain.

"Please," Keeks scoffs "it's almost midnight. Bob Linden is drunker than any of us right now. He'd probably drive into the lake if you tried to get him to pick you up."

Damn small towns. I forgot about the whole 'One Uber Driver' thing.

"C'mon, sweetheart. I'm sleepy. Why don't you show me your room?" Stephen says, standing and holding out a hand for me. We take our glasses to the kitchen and put away some of the leftover snacks while Keeks sets the alarm. When she's done, we turn off the lights and the three of us head upstairs.

Sigh. At least I might get a full night's sleep tonight.

25

STEPHEN

Jay McKenna

Forgot to mention before we went up, absolutely no driving tonight.

And just so you know, for absolutely no reason whatsoever, the guest room is way, way, way on the other side of the house from our bedroom. We're also a whole floor up, and we've both taken melatonin. You know, in case you were curious or if you know of any young gentleman who are currently working on getting an old girlfriend to fall back in love with them or something like that.

Do with that information what you will ;)

Hand to God, I had no intentions of doing anything improper tonight. I am a good, southern gentleman. I respect my elders, I have good manners, I carry groceries to people's cars for them. I was going to crashon the floor in Dean's room and then wake up early to make breakfast as a thank you to Jay and Keith for being such gracious hosts.

I was, until I walked up the stairs behind Dorothea a moment ago and saw that her tights don't go all the way up, but in fact, they stop at mid-thigh under her skirt, the lace tops held up by silky black straps.

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